Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com
NORTHRIDGE, Calif. – After seven-plus hours and temperatures rising into the 100s, the first day of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Men's Tennis Championships was completed as Pomona-Pitzer and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps advanced to Saturday's championship final. Though the top two seeds advanced to the final, Friday wasn't without an upset as No. 5 Whittier had a wild 5-4 win over No. 4 Redlands during the first round.
The previous time these two teams matched up together Whittier was on the opposite end of an 8-1 loss. This time around the Poets jumped out in front 2-1 after doubles and claimed three of six singles matches to pull off the upset victory over No. 17 Redlands.
In the wildest match of the day, Whittier was able to top Redlands with all but one singles match needing a tie-breaker. Down 4-2 midway through the match, freshman Troy Chavez started the Poet rally with a 5-7, 7-5, 6-3 victory in the No. 4 singles pairing over Teddy Burchett. Keeping the momentum going, freshman Mark Anthony Kenney won the No. 5 singles match 7-6, 7-6 over Max Licona in his biggest victory of the season before Chris Schommer completed the comeback with a marathon 6-0, 4-6, 6-4 victory over Parker Wilson at No. 2.
Sophomore David Konstantinov faced a tough matchup with Patrick Lipscomb at No. 1 and suffered a straight sets defeat in two breakers falling 7-6, 7-6. The previous time these two met, Konstantinov ran away with a 6-2, 6-3 victory.
In doubles Konstantinov and Schommer put the Poets on the board winning 8-6 over Licona and Jones before Samuel Farmer and Chavez gutted out an 8-6 victory at No. 2 over Burchett and Jake Ly.
With play split between the Poulson Tennis Center in Thousand Oaks and the Matador Tennis complex on the campus of Cal State Northridge, the Stags got the day going with a 5-1 victory over Caltech. CMS won the first two doubles pairings thanks to victories from Warren Wood and Joe Dorn in the No. 1 match and Daniel Morkovine and Zhenya Pereverzin in the No. 2. The Beavers were able to salvage a point however as Devashish Joshi and Luka Mernik picked up an 8-6 victory in the No. 3 pairing. Up 2-1, CMS was able to get to the clinching five points after singles wins from Wood and Rohan Shankar.
Pomona-Pitzer swept past Occidental in its first round match up, beating the Tigers 5-0. Jonathan Kim and Sam Crawford teamed up to win the No. 1 doubles game 9-7 while Spencer Simonides and Kevin Wei were victorious at No. 2 and Connor Sutton and Jake Yasgoor won at No. 3.
Cal Lutheran was also perfect in its opening round, downing Chapman 5-0. CLU's No. 1 doubles duo of Alex Nichols and Connor Treacy got the Kingsmen's first point of the day when they won 8-2. Cal Lutheran would go on to win the next two doubles matches before Ian Slater won 6-0, 6-2 in the No. 5 singles slot and Fergus Scott clinched the match with a 6-2, 6-1 victory at No. 6.
Semi-Final One
As the tournament transitioned to the semifinals, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps continued its march to a ninth straight SCIAC championship as it defeated Whittier 8-1. The Stags picked up a big No. 2 doubles win from Skyler Butts and Neel Kotrappa and a clinching singles win from Nikolas Marino at No. 3.
The lone win came at No. 1 singles where Konstantinov pulled off his biggest upset of the year defeating No. 1 ranked Warren Wood 6-0, 4-6, 6-2.
Semi-Final Two
In the other semifinal, Pomona-Pitzer edged Cal Lutheran 6-3. Nichols and Treacy were again victorious in the No. 1 doubles match but the Sagehens were able to swing the momentum of the match with wins at No. 2 and 3, which required extra points. In the No. 2 grouping, Crawford and Kim were able top Moises Cardenas and Scott 9-8 and Graham Maassen and Connor Hudson just got past Slater and Jesse Knight 9-7. During singles, Yasgoor, Maassen, Kim and Bello were all victorious, helping Pomona-Pitzer into the final.
2nd Round Matches
In the second round match between Caltech and Redlands, the Bulldogs took a 2-1 lead after doubles. Max Licona and Teddy Jones won the No. 1 match 8-4 while Teddy Burchett and Jake Ly took No. 3 8-3. The Beavers were again able to salvage a point during doubles as Rushikesh Joshi and Morgan Lebby won at No. 2 9-8.
Redlands would respond with singles victories from Patrick Lipscomb, Parker Wilson, Tom Suchodolski, Licona and Jones. For Caltech, Lebby would earn the second point of the match when he won at No. 4 singles winning 6-3, 6-3.
Capping the day off was a four-hour match between Chapman and Occidental. The Panthers gained a 2-1 advantage after doubles with Charlie Werman and Brett Buford winning the No. 1 match-up 8-5. CU's No. 2 duo of Sam Mittledorf and Justin Thompson were also victorious, winning 8-6. The Tigers got a point back however at No. 3 with Avery Chernin and Trevor Brown winning 9-8.
After Chapman went up 3-1 due to an Occidental injury, the Tigers would even the match after Josh Dancu won at No. 1 singles winning 6-1, 6-1 before Jeremy Kirchoff took No. 6 singles 6-2, 6-0. Despite the late charge, Werman would give the Panthers the decisive point, winning at No. 2 singles winning 7-6, 7-5.
CMS and Pomona-Pitzer will square off for the SCIAC Championship at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday at Cal State Northridge. The third place game between Cal Lutheran and Whittier will be held in Thousand Oaks at the same time. The other two matches will be held at CSUN at 10:00 a.m.
